A spontaneus casting Mage

[Jeph]

I think it's stupid for the Wizard, and even stupider for the Mage, and at that, only merely acceptable for the cleric and acolyte: prepairing spells. Has ANYONE ever read (non fanfic) fantasy novels in which casters actually prepare spells? And for d20M, I find it even more odd that the mage prepaires spells. So, a proposoal for a spontaneus casting mage.

Keep all class features, except for Spell Mastery, which becomes irrelavent. Even keep Int-based casting. Nix the spell book. Spells Known now use the table on page 319 (the one that's supposed to be for spells per day). In addition, if the Mage gets a bonus spell of a given level, they also know 1 more spell of that level. Keep the spells per day, but add 1 per day of each spell level that the Mage can cast.

Seem too powerful? Underpowered? Not versatile enough? Too versatile? Comments welcome.

 

[Crothian]

So, you're building a sorcerer?

 

[beverson]

spontaneous casting

Check out the new release from Natural 20 Press - the Elements of Magic. It's a whole new magic system designed to add to or replace the existing system in d20. I've been browsing through the pdf and it's pretty good. Could be what you are looking for...

 

[Geoff Watson]

There are many fantasy stories where the spellcasters have to do a hugely complicated ritual to cast even the simplest spell.
D&D-style preparation is a playable version of that (do the ritual when preparing the spell, so they can cast the spell in a hurry when they need it.)

Geoff.

 

[Kesh]

If you want a spontaneous caster, take a look at Mongoose Publishing's Encyclopaedia Arcane: Chaos Magic. They've got a nice, flexible magic system worked up there, ready for d20.

 

[Squirrel Nutkin]

Weird War 2 had a very good spontaneous system, in which you could cast any spell that you know but you must make a Spellcraft check vs. a DC of 15 + (spell level x 2) to cast it successfully, and you'll take (3 x spell level) in fatigue points each time you attempt to cast any spell regardless.

 

[drnuncheon]

I think it's stupid for the Wizard, and even stupider for the Mage, and at that, only merely acceptable for the cleric and acolyte: prepairing spells. Has ANYONE ever read (non fanfic) fantasy novels in which casters actually prepare spells?

Jack Vance's classic Dying Earth series, of course, which is where the idea was first taken from.

Roger Zelazny's second Amber series dealt more with sorcery - spells were prepared ahead of time with certain keywords left unspoken - saying the keywords would unleash the spell.

The lesser wizards Goblin and One-Eye in Glen Cook's Black Company seem to need time to prepare their spells if they want to be effective at all.

I won't include Pratchett's Discworld or Rosenberg's Guardians of the Flame since they're pretty clearly inspired by D&D - even though they don't really fit your "fanfic" description.

To the hordes of people who are going to say "That's only three out of how many?" I will add that most fantasy fiction I have read has placed far stronger restrictions on the types of effects that wizards can perform than D&D does - forcing a wizard to specialize in a particular branch of magic or an element, for example.

J
...kind of curious what these 'mage' and 'acolyte' classes are though.

 

[Jeph]

the d20 modern advanced classes. the 'Mage' is like the wizard, and they have no spontaneusly casting advanced class. The 'acolyte' is like the cleric.

 

[Terath Ninir]

[begin shameless plug]
As beverson said, my new book The Elements of Magic has a spell system similar to what you're looking for. And I designed it for exactly the same reasons as you've noted -- it fits better for the sort of fantasy I read and see in the movies. It's a free-form system that uses magic points and spell lists (rather than individual spells) that allows a spell caster to do many more things than in the core rules.

You can find the book by going to the top of the main ENWorld page.
[/end shameless plug]

Not that there would be any problem with having a ritual magic system. That could work quite nicely. I think, however, that the Core magic system is bad at that, too. Heck, it doesn't even model the magic from Jack Vance's Dying Earth books very well. D&D doesn't have the worst RPG spellcasting system, but it isn't very good, either.

 

[Plane Sailing]

D&D doesn't have the worst RPG spellcasting system, but it isn't very good, either.

Which do you think is the worst spellcasting system?